How the Marquess Was Won (24 page)

I am content with what I have?
It was a bald lie. A lie with talons. She savagely envied Lisbeth the hand resting on her waist, enfolding Lisbeth’s hand as though Lisbeth was something precious and worthy.

She jerked her head back to her dancing partner.

Her cheeks were burning now, and the ratafia was beginning to churn as they turned round and round. Perhaps a
circular
dance on the heels of too much drinking hadn’t been the most sensible choice she could make.

The viscount’s eyes were gleaming at her. “I have never known anyone like you, Miss Vale.”

She sighed. She almost pitied him. “Likely because I am a
teacher
,” she pointed out. “And you are a viscount. And viscounts tend to meet other viscounts and the like.”

Even this bit of practicality he seemed to find profound. “And you’ve never married?” He sounded mystified.

“I am twenty-two years old. It is perhaps a bit too soon to use the word
never
.”

Every time she said something, he blinked as though she’d shone a bright light in his eyes. And there was always a peculiar moment’s hesitation before he responded. She was reminded of a young Italian girl she’d once tutored, who needed to carefully translate English words into Italian and before she spoke aloud her English answers, so conversation with her always featured a bit of delay. Clearly there was nothing in Waterburn’s experience to prepare him for someone like her. He needed a Rosetta stone for translating Rabble into Aristocracy and back again.

“But
come
now, Miss Vale . . . wouldn’t you rather be wealthy? To be showered with gifts and—”

She halted his sentence with the hike of one shoulder: a shrug. Simply because she knew it would make his eyes widen in astonishment.

They did.

“And . . . have you . . . suitors?”

He might as well have been a naturalist along the lines of Mr. Miles Redmond interviewing a native. He seemed almost afraid to hear the answer, suspecting it might call into question his entire existence.

“Countless,” she lied.

It was while Waterburn was absorbing the troubling notion that she might be inundated with suitors
because
of her laissez-faire attitude toward wealth that Phoebe at last caught the eye of the marquess.

The chandelier struck light from his guinea-colored eyes. They saw her, flared swift with surprise, then went hot. She would have
given
a guinea to be able to toss her head insouciantly and look away again, to laugh merrily up into the face of her partner and then heave an obvious and contented sigh.

But the moment their gazes brushed she felt that lightning-strike sizzle at the base of her spine. There was nothing else in the room. There was no one else in the world. They searched each other’s faces for answers to some question they could hardly formulate. She found no answers in his. But there was some small compensation in knowing he was equally in thrall, for he didn’t look away, either.

And then he was forced to look away, because he stumbled.

She winced. It was a rare and momentary hiccup in grace. Likely no one who wasn’t
avidly
watching him would even have noticed. He took two confident little steps forward to correct his rhythm and catch up to his partner.

Which would have done the trick, if Lisbeth hadn’t just taken two little steps backward to accommodate his stumble, all the while beaming up at him sympathetically.

Forcing
him
to take two more polite little steps backward to match her pace.

Just as Lisbeth, eager to correct her error, did precisely the same thing. At the same time. Again.

Forcing him to launch into a sort of lunge reminiscent of a long jumper to avoid crushing Lisbeth’s foot under his, which is where it had wound up.

While at the same time Lisbeth tried to leap out from beneath his boot by pulling with all her might to the left.

And this, tragically, was when gravity lost its patience and destiny exercised its rights and everything went straight to hell and into legend.

The marquess teetered to the left, then teetered to the right, and Lisbeth’s slippers futilely scrabbled in place, but when they began to tip in earnest, the marquess made a desperate decision: he flung Lisbeth away from him to safety.

So it was Jules who crashed to all fours on the floor of the ballroom.

Lisbeth spun past Phoebe like a blurry muslin roulette wheel. Her eyes and mouth
O
’s of shock.

Phoebe burst into laughter. She quite roared with it. It was rude, she knew, but she simply couldn’t help it. The ratafia . . . ! And Lisbeth’s expression . . . !

Someone gave Lisbeth a little push in the opposite direction and she had enough momentum to go spiraling back to the marquess. Who had righted himself nearly instantly and deftly caught her, sweeping her into the
one, two, three
rhythm of the waltz again as if nothing had happened at all. As if he indeed had
planned
all of it.

Phoebe was able to watch all of this thanks to her own mountainous partner, her head turned one way watching whilst her body below was waltzing. If she began to trip she imagined Waterburn would merely lift her off the floor, give her a shake to untangle her legs and set her down again.

Waterburn wasn’t laughing. When she returned her eyes to his face, his were narrowed shrewdly. He’d been watching the entire episode as if memorizing it.

“He doesn’t normally drink to excess,” the viscount mused. “So
that’s
not it . . .”

“Perhaps he
did
drink to excess for the first time.” She didn’t believe it. “Perhaps he just stumbled. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“No. He doesn’t. And he never does anything without a reason. He certainly doesn’t
stumble
.”

He sounded both fascinated and speculative and bitter and so utterly certain that Phoebe wondered where
she
fell in the spectrum of things the marquess had done.

And then it was quite sobering to know that this was what the ton at large thought of Jules, and what a burden it must be for him.

Chapter 17

I
f she’d had to summarize, she was forced to admit the evening had been glorious.

She’d won ten pounds—
ten pounds!
—at the disreputable game of five-card loo, instigated by Lady Marie and her lovely echo, Lady Antoinette. She half suspected they’d lost deliberately, as they seemed to find it charming when Phoebe won. She’d danced reels as well as all three waltzes, including the very last dance of the evening, the Sir Roger de Coverley. The young men had clamored for a chance to dance with her.

She drank too much. She laughed a good deal. And the marquess seemed everywhere on the periphery of her vision, though this might have in fact been an illusion.

She paused in the courtyard to admire the moon. Just a curved sliver of light, like the door of heaven had been left slightly ajar. She fancied it would be slammed shut after today, and today she’d slipped through. She’d had just a taste. And she’d long ago learned not to hold on to anything too tightly, for the pain when it was wrested away could not be born.

She wanted to remember every detail about this day, for when she lay awake at night, telling herself stories in order to help her sleep in the wilds of Africa.

“A bit like the Sword of Damocles hanging up there, isn’t it?”

She didn’t jump, possibly because the ratafia had quite blunted the edges of her nerves, and partly because, given the events of the day, she’d half expected him to appear out of the shadows anyway. In fact, if she’d had a wish, in her heart of hearts, it was that he’d appear out of nowhere and they would be alone again . . . and here he was.

But she was growing nervous of the cascade of wishes coming true today. In fairy tales, granted wishes generally resulted in grave consequences. A punishment for wanting too much, or wanting the wrong things.

Still, it didn’t stop her heart from turning a cartwheel. And then thumping on much more quickly than before he’d spoken.

He’d waited for her. Of that she was certain.

“And here I was thinking it looked rather like the door to heaven just slightly ajar, Lord Dryden. But your observation does give one a bit of insight into
you
.”

He laughed softly. “And yours gives one insight into yours, Miss Vale. It’s about escape, isn’t it?”

“Mmm. Perhaps. And perhaps
you
fear the consequences of what you really want.”

She heard his breath catch. She’d struck home.

“I won’t deny it,” he said, finally.

The admission was a gift. He wanted
her
.

But she couldn’t so easily forgive the expression on his face this evening as she’d stepped toward him. Or forget hearing him request a waltz from Lisbeth as she stood there, pawned off upon Jonathan.

Who’d turned out to be a delightful dance partner. But who now looked so like Lyon proximity to him was a little unnerving.

“I wondered, Miss Vale . . . if you’d promised your fourth waltz to anyone.”

“There were only three waltzes.”

“I’m not certain parliament has yet ruled the number of waltzes allowed during a given evening. Or when they should take place. Doubtless we won’t be strung up if we add one more.”

No “honor me with” or “if you would be so kind as to.” No pomp, no ceremony. She was tempted to decline on the basis of that alone.

That, and she was fairly certain she shouldn’t touch him again. She could get to needing to touch him. She’d seen what
needing
things had done to people. And she, quite frankly, didn’t want to need anyone ever again.

“No music is playing,” she pointed out.

“I’ll hum, if you like.”

This won him the smile he’d been aching to see.

“You had an opportunity to dance the waltz with me earlier.”

“I took pity upon Lisbeth. I felt certain all of yours would be taken eventually.”

She snorted.

“And they were taken, weren’t they?”

She tipped her head, and he watched her reflect on the evening, and a dreamy smile spread over her face. As she spoke, she was almost breathless.

“They
were
. It was the most . . .
amazing
thing.”

He felt her awe as surely as it was his own, this girl from St. Giles. He reveled in her pleasure. “I’m glad,” he said softly.

“Glad?” As usual, she was alert to hints of condescension.

“That you got in some waltzing practice before
I
dance with you. I shouldn’t like to be tread upon.”

“I see. It was all strategy, on your part, not dancing with me. A viscount asked for the
honor
of dancing with me.” She still sounded amazed. “That was the word he used.
Honor
.”

“Did he, now?” he said softly. “And well he should have.”

For a moment they regarded each other in silence. And when he spoke, his voice was soft.

“I should be deeply, humbly grateful, Miss Vale, if you would be so unthinkably generous as to honor me with a waltz. Right now.”

She mulled this offer, while the crickets played the opening bars of the waltz.

“Well, before I raise or dash your hopes, Lord Dryden, I best take a look at my dance card . . .”

With a flourish she held up her hand and examined an invisible card.

He was ridiculously breathless with anticipation awaiting her verdict. She allowed a strategic moment to pass, to punish him, which perhaps he deserved.

“You are in luck, Lord Dryden. My fourth waltz appears to be available,” she informed him loftily. “And you may have it.”

“This is very good news, indeed. Shall I hum, or shall the crickets be music enough for us?”

She was silent, mulling. “Crickets.” She sounded shy again.

“Excellent. For I should feel a fool humming. I cannot carry a tune.”

He bowed low as any courtier before any queen.

She curtsied as deeply as she could, grateful her knees didn’t crack, aware that she could feel the chill of cobblestone now against the bottom of her slipper. The soles were wearing a bit thin.

And she took his hand. He folded his reverently over it. He settled the other at her waist.

“Shall we?” he said softly.